As the author clearly explained, nothing was actually happening. It was all in their minds. Now think of the scenario when a few of the very scared people there had guns. One of them might have falsely see one of the other people there as the bad guy, maybe even Marcela under the car and would shoot that person. Another person sees that shooter and shoots back and so on. Wouldn’t it all transform from an incident where a lot of people panicked to a lot of people dead?